Chapter Text
“And these are my only options?” Nesta asked, eyes fixed on her youngest sister. “Train with Cassian, or the human lands?”
“I…” Feyre trailed off, her gaze flicking to her mate before she squared her shoulders and met her stare with the eyes of the High Lady of the Night Court. “Yes.”
Nesta could feel the eyes of everyone on her, Amren’s hateful glare, Cassian’s patronizing look, Rhysand’s eyes, seeing right through her like she was nothing but the inconvenience she knew she was. She wouldn’t look at them, refused to. “What did Elain say when you told her you were giving me the choice of imprisoning me or being left in the wild to die?”
“Elain agreed to this hours ago,” Feyre said. “She’s packing your things, they’ll be waiting for you at the House of Wind.”
“ Packing… ?!”
“If Elain wants to see you, she’s free to,” Feyre continued like Nesta hadn’t spoken. “One of us will fly her up, gladly.”
“I’m glad I wouldn’t be denied visitors while I pay my debt to society,” Nesta retorted.
“She’ll go when she wants to,” Feyre said. “In the meantime, you’ll stay at the house with Cassian.”
“”I promise not to bite,” Cassian said, the sound of his voice hitting somewhere uncomfortable in her gut, like it always did now, ever since that house fire of a solstice…
“I suppose this was your idea?” Nesta asked.
“It was. We’re going to have a wonderful time together,” Cassian said, his voice dripping with disdain.
“ No, we won’t,” Nesta said. “I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are,” Feyre said. “I don’t care what you say. You’re doing it. You can’t sustain your life like this, and I can’t watch you destroy yourself, and I certainly won’t pay for it.”
“ You’re not paying for anything…”
“Do not disrespect her that way,” Rhysand said, and it didn’t matter how annoying she found Rhysand, how holier than though, how judgmental, there was still a part of her, the animalistic part of her that had been howling constantly since she was shoved into the Cauldron, that responded to his tone with nothing but deference.
She hated that. She hated them.
“Rhys,” Feyre says. “Let me handle this. Nesta….”
It seemed to Nesta that as soon as Feyre said that, as soon as the word handle came out of her mouth, that something snapped inside of her. She could practically hear that snap: the crash of a glass stein broken over someone’s head in the bar fight she witnessed last week, the clap of thunder that made static crawl over her skin and in her hair, the sound of her father’s neck breaking every time she got near a fire…
“…are you ready to go?” Feyre seemed to be finishing a long speech, a final plea to make her go to her gilded, magical cage quietly. “Nesta?”
“I want to go to the human lands.”
Silence. All eyes were on her, but she wouldn’t look at any of them. They didn’t deserve that courtesy, that politeness, after they worked behind her back to undercut every shred of independence she could carve out away from this fucking night court, after they shoved a cage at her and called it an intervention.
“You’re not serious,” Amren said, and that was the wrong thing to say. “You’re actually not serious.”
“Take me to the human lands, right now,” Nesta said. “Winnow me, point me in the proper direction so I can walk. But I’ll live there before I go to train at Windhaven.”
“Nesta…” Cassian said, his tone tinged with warning, like she was a wild animal, and they were the poor bastards tasked with subduing her. Handling her.
“I can take a guess at the direction,” Nesta continued, ignoring Cassian. “I’d just need to go…” She stopped to mentally orient herself: if the river house was across town from where she lived (at least formerly, if the claim that they ripped down the building was true), she would have to go…
“That way, and it’s just straight down from there,” Nesta said, pointing over her shoulder at nothing, the direction she was going in life, but still better than the ashes in her mouth at the thought of living with Cassian in a house she couldn’t get out of on her own. “If you won’t take me I can walk.”
“Stop it, girl,” Amren cut in. “You’ve made your point, you’re wretched and suicidal…”
“I am no such thing,” Nesta interrupted. “What I am is done with your handling me. If going to the human lands stops that from happening, I’ll go.”
“You’ll die,” Rhysand said, his voice menacing, a tone he only took with Nesta from what she could tell. “You’d really rather die than take the hand Feyre is offering you?”
“Oh, like this truly is her doing…”
“It is,” Amren said. “If I’d had my way I would have sent you to the Court of Nightmares until you were begging to come home. Every courtesy you have is a direct result of Feyre’s generosity of heart, and you spit on her with every word you say. You don’t deserve her, the chances she continually gives you. Do something worthwhile for once in your relationship with her and go.”
That last word may as well have been a shove out the door and out of the lives of her sisters, if walking through the river house and seeing not one piece of evidence that Nesta had ever been part of their lives hadn’t already been. Their father was worthy of Feyre and Rhysand’s walls, but she was so horrible that all she deserved was this attempt at imprisonment?
Well, she’d show them what horrible was, and then maybe they’d leave her be.
“Amren, please,” Feyre said, like she could stop any of what was happening right now, like she had any control or power over anyone. “Enough. Nesta, I…”
“Okay.”
Nesta’s voice stopped everyone in their tracks. Feyre’s face remained unchanged, but something in her eyes did, a little light returned to them, like hope.
“Really?” Feyre asked. “That’s good. And this isn’t forever, I promise. Cassian will tell us your progress as you go on, and…”
“No, I said okay, I’ll go to the human lands, since that’s what you want,” Nesta said, and that little light in Feyre’s eyes went out.
“Nesta, think about this…” Cassian began.
“You want me to go?” Nesta asked, her eyes landing on Amren, ignoring Cassian. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to ignore her until it was convenient for him anyway. “I’ll go. It’s what you all want, anyway.”
Amren, to her credit, did not look away, but Nesta did, her eyes landing on Rhysand next. His violet eyes stormed with something like indignation, like he’d never expected his grand scheme not to work out, like he’d never seen anyone disobey him on such a grand scale, because of course this whole House of Wind imprisonment scheme was his idea. Feyre was a lot of things, but one thing she had never been was a person to lay out a choice like this.
“You want me to go?” Nesta said. “Don’t not answer me, I’m actually asking you.”
“Feyre wants you here,” Rhysand answered.
“That’s good for Feyre,” Nesta said, and she would have felt bad for how Feyre flinched at the sound of her own name, but she had a point to make, a High Lord to free herself from. “You want me to go?”
“Nesta, stop!” Feyre said, but Nesta kept going, kept barreling ahead towards the oblivion she was always destined for.
“I can do that,” Nesta said, meeting Rhys’s stare, feeling the power she kept locked up tight respond to the heavy, night chilled energy surrounding him, reacting to his own feelings. “I’m not playing your game. You want me to go? I’ll go to the human lands, I’ll fuck right off and die then.”
Something flickered in Rhysand’s gaze before his eyes narrowed slightly, and Nesta knew she’d won. She wasn’t sure what stupid prizes she’d win for playing such stupid games, but she won, and she’d take that victory over a choice that was never a choice at all, even if that victory was hollow. She’d burn down every bridge if it meant that what was left was truly hers.
“Okay,” Rhysand said. “I’ll have Azriel drop you off in your old village on his way to the continent.”
“Rhys!” Feyre protested.
“We gave her a choice,” Rhysand said. “She chose. Far be it from me to force her to do anything.”
“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go!”
“Nesta…” Cassian said again, actually making a grab for her hand to get her attention, try to get her to stop, but for once, Nesta truly felt unstoppable.
“I’ll be outside, then.” Nesta spun on her heel and walked out of the room. Walked away from the friend who had called her a waste, the man who said he’d die for her but always, always fell short. Walked away from the high lord who had been waiting for this day since the moment they met, and his mate, her sister, who would never truly understand her.
“Good,” Amren said as she went, the door slamming shut behind her. “Have the life you deserve.”